Energy amplification of short pulses in the presence of distributed absorption is analyzed and discussed. A short pulse is defined as a pulse length that is much shorter than the lasing state lifetime. It is shown that the energy density of a short pulse cannot be amplified indefinitely in the presence of nonsaturable absorption. In an active medium having a small signal gaing0and a nonsaturable absorption &agr;, the maximum attainable energy density is (Esatg0/&agr;), whereEsatis the medium saturation energy. High‐energy densities are obtained at the expense of the extraction efficiency. An amplifier design can be optimized by choosing the appropriate parameters such as small signal gain and active medium gain length.